- The Story: The Oakland Athletics have returned Rule V draft pick Bobby Cassevah to the Angels. The Monkey Says: Cassevah is a nice relief prospect, so the Angels should be glad to have him back, especially after seeing how badly the decision to not have Darren O’Day returned to them last season when they had the chance (not that Cassevah is anywhere near O’Day right now).
- The Story: Brandon Wood will get the first opportunity to be the starter at third base. The Monkey Says: That is a relief… for now. Hopefully this minor vote of confidence will allow Woody to relax a little bit and focus just on playing and not on looking over his shoulder for Maicer Izturis.
- The Story: The Angels’ farm system ranks 20th using the Baseball Prospects star system. The Monkey Says: What is this? Kindergarten? Prospects get stars now? Are they gold stars or silver stars? Or does it depend on how well they perform during show and tell?
- The Story: The Angels reassigned 17 players to minor league camp. The Monkey Says: Trevor Bell gets a somewhat surprising early demotion considering he was a dark horse for a relief job coming into camp. Other names of note among the 17 sent down are top prospects Trevor Reckling, Will Smith and Alexi Amarista.
- The Story: Scott Kazmir, Kevin Jepsen and Fernando Rodney all made their spring debuts yesterday. The Monkey Says: This means that all of the pitchers likely to make the active roster are now healthy enough to play which is pretty much the exact opposite of last season. now they just need to get the position players healthy as the injury bug is starting to ravage that side of the roster this spring.
- The Story: A survey of MLB executives considers the signing of Hideki Matsui one of the best moves of this off-season. The Monkey Says: So did the signings of Chone Figgins and Aroldis Chapman, two moves the Angels failed to make. I’m just saying.
- The Story: The Angels get an early vote for deepest rotation in baseball. The Monkey Says: Deepest? No doubt. Best? I’m not so sure. The Angel rotation should be pretty good, but at least one member of the rotation is going to have to take his game to the next level if they really want to have an elite set of starting pitchers.
- The Story: Don’t expect the Halos to fall off in 2010. The Monkey Says: Add one more non-Angel fan that thinks the team isn’t destined to be dethroned in the AL West this year to the tally. The grand total now stands at two.
- The Story: Major League Baseball and the Angels will break ground on a new community sports complex in Anaheim. The Monkey Says: This is a great charitable move by the team. It also happens to be a mandatory part of the hosting duties for the All-Star Game, so this is great community service in the way that a Hollywood celebrity does “great community service” after they make a plea bargain when they get busted for doing cocaine off a hooker’s ass while driving drunk.